A Lancaster skinhead was found guilty Thursday of first-degree
murder in the 1995 racially motivated beating death of an
African-American transient.

Randall Rojas, 24, who was convicted two years ago in another
Antelope Valley hate crime, faces life in prison without the possibility
of parole for the slaying of Milton Walker Jr., who the jurors declared
had been killed because of his race.

``Personally, as an American, I would never want such racist
beliefs to be a basis for such a crime,'' juror Fred Totten of
Los Angeles said outside court. ``The fact that this happened when they
were so young, teen-agers, I can't believe with the progress
we've had in the past 20 years that this kind of crime could still
happen.''

The juror said there was overwhelming evidence pointing to hate of
African-American people as the motive.

``There was an accumulation of evidence piled on top of
another,'' Totten said.

Walker was fatally beaten with a board in a vacant lot behind a
McDonald's restaurant in the 800 block of West Avenue I two days
after Thanksgiving 1995. Walker's battered body was found by an
employee of a neighboring business shortly after 9 p.m.

Rojas, Ritch Bryant, 20, and Jessica Colwell, 20, are charged with
murdering Walker, who prosecutors say was killed to earn his killers
lightning bolt tattoos, considered a badge of honor among white
supremacists.

Two other separate juries continued to deliberate Thursday on the
cases against Bryant and Colwell.

A fourth defendant, Michael Thornton, testified at a July 1998
preliminary hearing that he, Bryant and Rojas decided to go to
McDonald's and ran into a white woman who said Walker had kicked
her in the back. Thornton's videotaped testimony was played for the
jurors.

Thornton testified that the three approached Walker, and Thornton
punched the victim after asking whether he kicked a white woman,
officials said.

Rojas then came up from behind and hit Walker in the face with a
board, beating the victim until Thornton pulled him off and ordered him
to stop, Thornton testified.

After the three left, Thornton testified that Bryant said he wanted
to ``earn bolts'' - tattoos that for members of the Nazi Low
Riders prison gang indicates the wearer has killed a minority - and
returned to the scene with Colwell less than an hour later.

Thornton testified that Bryant told him the next day that he earned
his bolts. Bryant hit the victim with a two-by-four and Colwell poked
Walker in the eye with a pole, prosecutors said.

Bryant and Rojas already have been sentenced to prison for hate
crimes.

In March 1997, Rojas was sentenced to two years in prison after he
admitted beating a Latino outside a 7-Eleven in September 1995.

Bryant was sentenced to eight years in prison for a December 1995
attack on an African-American student at Antelope Valley High School. He
pleaded guilty to assault and admitted committing a hate crime in the
beating and stabbing of the African-American student with a screwdriver as he walked across the Antelope Valley High baseball field between
classes.

Rojas, a stocky young man with slicked-back hair, watched the clerk
closely as she read the four guilty verdicts - murder, committing a hate
crime, acting in concert with other attackers and personally using a
deadly weapon.

Dressed in a pin-striped oxford shirt and army green pants, his
hands folded on the table in front of him, Rojas appeared to sink lower
in his chair with each guilty verdict.

Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, who presided over the trial,
thanked the somber jurors for completing their ``unpleasant
task.''

``I'm sorry you had to be the people to shoulder this
burden,'' Ito said. ``I apologize for having to subject you to
this type of case and understand that this experience will last with you
for the rest of your life.''

Outside court, the jury foreman, who asked to remain anonymous,
said the panel believed Rojas had delivered the killing blow to
Walker's head during the first of two attacks despite uncertainty
about when the victim died.

Some testimony suggested that Walker was still alive later that
evening, when Bryant and Colwell allegedly returned to the lot and beat
him in the head with a metal pipe and the same wooden board Rojas used.

The jury foreman said the panel's only difficulty was deciding
whether it should be first- or second-degree murder, but the hate-crime
finding was easy.

``He was a self-described member of the Nazi Low
Riders,'' the foreman said. ``The testimony that he wanted to
earn those lightning bolts was compelling. We also heard that there were
racial epithets used. This crime was appalling and
unacceptable.''

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